philbert119
Member
I measured my mash pH last night in anticipation of an upcoming brewday of a German pilsner. I tested the mash pH of Weyermann pilsner malt in a solution of 50% filtered tap water and 50% RO water. My tap water averages from the yearly water report are as follows:
Alkalinity: 60ppm
Calcium: 73ppm
Magnesium: 60ppm
Sodium: 52ppm
Chloride: 55ppm
Sulfate: 124ppm
pH:9.6!!!!
(Im also going to add 1.25 grams of CaCL2 to the mash on brewday to get my CL:SO4 ratio in line with the pilsner style and boost the Ca lost in dilution with RO water, but I didnt add it last night.)
I plugged these numbers into the EZ Water Calculator 2.0 and they predicted a mash pH of 5.55 without any acid malt treatment. I have a Milwaukee SM101 pH meter that I calibrated before taking my measurements. I did a thin mash, 2.0 qts. per pound of grist, and the pH meter read 5.80 at 70F. Now I know that room temperature readings will be higher than the pH at mash temperature, which was around 148F, and according to Kaiser in his Overview of pH, pH at mash temperatures (65 C/150 F) is about 0.35 pH units lower than at room temperature. Assuming this, my pH at mash temperature was around 5.45, although in Kaisers own experiments show the difference was somewhere around .2 pH. So my mash pH is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.45-5.6, and could in fact be the 5.55 predicted by the calculator. I was doing all these calculations so that I could predict the correct percentage of acidulated malt to add, which in my estimation would be 3% to get down to around in the 5.2-5.4 range.
Does this sound reasonable to those experienced in water treatment? If Im using acidulated malt, am I correct in assuming theres no need to treat my sparge water?
Alkalinity: 60ppm
Calcium: 73ppm
Magnesium: 60ppm
Sodium: 52ppm
Chloride: 55ppm
Sulfate: 124ppm
pH:9.6!!!!
(Im also going to add 1.25 grams of CaCL2 to the mash on brewday to get my CL:SO4 ratio in line with the pilsner style and boost the Ca lost in dilution with RO water, but I didnt add it last night.)
I plugged these numbers into the EZ Water Calculator 2.0 and they predicted a mash pH of 5.55 without any acid malt treatment. I have a Milwaukee SM101 pH meter that I calibrated before taking my measurements. I did a thin mash, 2.0 qts. per pound of grist, and the pH meter read 5.80 at 70F. Now I know that room temperature readings will be higher than the pH at mash temperature, which was around 148F, and according to Kaiser in his Overview of pH, pH at mash temperatures (65 C/150 F) is about 0.35 pH units lower than at room temperature. Assuming this, my pH at mash temperature was around 5.45, although in Kaisers own experiments show the difference was somewhere around .2 pH. So my mash pH is somewhere in the neighborhood of 5.45-5.6, and could in fact be the 5.55 predicted by the calculator. I was doing all these calculations so that I could predict the correct percentage of acidulated malt to add, which in my estimation would be 3% to get down to around in the 5.2-5.4 range.
Does this sound reasonable to those experienced in water treatment? If Im using acidulated malt, am I correct in assuming theres no need to treat my sparge water?